Baby Carnage
by blacktop
Summary: The tranquil peace of Detective Riley's apartment couldn't last forever; a new villain on a mission disrupts Reese and Carter's morning routine. This two-chapter story follows on developments in another tale, "Dominion," about the tightening grip of the city's newest gang, The Brotherhood.
1. Chapter 1

"Stay."

Until the whispered plea wafted from under the disheveled comforter, Carter had assumed Reese was sleeping soundly once again.

Saturday was five days in the future, the feeble March sun peering through his bedroom windows tried its best to prod them through their workday morning routine.

Sex, shower, whole wheat toast dry, high-octane coffee with a splash of milk for her, black for him.

They had only made it through step one so far.

"Stay, Joss."

John's muffled drawl took on a new urgency, the slow but enticing story spelled out in words that set her insides tingling.

The chapter and verse of his tale was elaborated in moist syllables pressed against her chin, her throat, her clavicle, her throbbing breast.

"Unfinished business here."

A hard thigh across her leg, a compelling argument pressed against her ass.

"Stay."

Detective Riley, with his roguish smiles, could get away with habitual tardiness.

Of course, Fusco grumbled from time to time, just to stay in step with the starchier members of the squad. But months ago Captain Moreno had given up even pretending to chastise Riley about his cavalier approach to rules.

Unorthodox didn't begin to describe his methods, but Riley cleared his cases, rounded up the requisite number of suspects, even pried a few grateful words out of grumpy civilians. His numbers made Moreno look good and that was what counted with the brass. It didn't matter if Riley arrived late at the station house.

But Carter knew she was subject to a harsher standard, always had been, always would be.

She was determined to make it to roll call this morning on time and unrushed. Running late might be good for her libido, but it was bad for her career advancement.

So when his fingertips started tapping another cajoling tattoo on her hip and his warm palm pressed against the pulse fluttering between her legs again, she wriggled away into the chilly morning air and scrambled for the bathroom.

But the roll and pitch of her desire made the floor seem to buckle as she walked and it took several splashes of cold water before she regained her balance. The slack mouth and reddened lips, the Medusa tangle of hair staring back from the mirror made a case for returning to bed, as did the wet trails of passion across her throat and shoulders and nipples.

Riley. Reese. John.

She didn't need this distraction; but she wanted it, more than she would ever say.

The supreme irony of the Samaritan war was that when the machine created Detective Riley as a cover identity for John, the birth of the new persona had given them a respite from secrecy and the harried subterfuge of their vigilante life.

They could enjoy a more public existence than they had ever known before. Freed from the shadows, they could sit in the stands at Taylor's basketball games together, they could debate the merit of vintages at the local boutique wine outlet together, they could openly spend the night together in Riley's new home whenever time permitted. Not every night, not as often as she might have wished, not nearly enough to call it regular or normal or ordinary.

But despite the war, despite the anxiety and constant menace, they could exhale. Together.

POIPOIPOIPOI

The one-bedroom apartment was boxy and bland, a miniature recapitulation of the anonymous fifteen story building itself. With just Riley's cop salary to work with and precious little time or patience, John had furnished it in a single hectic weekend. The sparse set up included a pair of brown leather club chairs, a three-seat sofa in camel corduroy, and two floor lamps stationed on the blond parquet wood.

Once Joss had asked about a coffee table, but she made no other decorating suggestions after John installed a massive raw wood shipping crate in front of the couch.

A new king bed and a four-drawer dresser crowded the bedroom. The kitchen was a brief galley of maple wood cabinets facing the living room, its stainless steel appliances and plain white tile backsplash signaling the exhaustion of the building's dull decorator. An island topped with black granite divided the kitchen from the living room, two aluminum stools providing Joss with a safe perch from which to watch John prepare meals.

One week after John moved into the apartment, a burly delivery man had dumped two large rolled up Oriental rugs in front of the kitchen island. No message, no signature required, no comment from the mute porter.

Ornate house-warming gifts from Harold.

The pale Persian in ivories and midnight blues was wide enough to protrude from both sides of the bed. A larger tribal rug's pattern of blood reds, navy, and gold relieved the starkness of the living room's rough furniture. The carpet shimmered in the light from wide windows that lined one wall of the open space; beyond, lower Manhattan's crisp silhouettes masked the bustle of the living streets below.

Joss wanted to borrow the glimmer of the city lights for the cool apartment interior, so from her own overstuffed storage unit, she had retrieved a silver-framed mirror for the entrance hall and a white porcelain vase to hold the roses she occasionally brought.

She hadn't asked John's permission when she hung the mirror and installed the vase, but as he didn't object or even comment, she took his silence for approval.

With the lush carpets as an exotic grace note, the place didn't look precisely like either one of them, she felt. Rather, it seemed an amalgam of their styles: clean and angular, more cool and empty than she would have wished; but in the tumult and dangerous uncertainty of their lives, John's new apartment was an anchor she clung to with increasing frequency.

Now through the closed door of the bathroom, she could hear the rustle of bedcovers tossed aside and then a cheerful humming buzzed around the space.

"You can run, Little Missy. You can even hide."

John's wizened accent was a close approximation of Yosemite Sam's crabbed old prospector voice.

"But I know where you stay and I'ma gonna get you sooner or later." A cartoonish cackle, then the humming resumed.

The day had officially begun.

Even though she had a head start, she couldn't deny John access to his own bathroom for long. So he managed to shower and dress in his efficient black and white before she had even slapped a coat of lotion on her arms. Her hair twisted into a top-knot, she tugged her pullover and slacks from the bottom dresser drawer. She could hear him in the kitchen, the murmur of his morning conversation with Harold punctuated by the ferocious popping of the toaster.

When she entered the kitchen, a stack of wheat toast nestled beside a steaming mug of coffee on the counter. He had laced it with just the right amount of milk for her, the swirls of white and black still revolving as she approached the island.

John was slipping into his black overcoat, a gloved hand on the door knob. Though she wanted to, she knew better than to stop him for a final kiss.

In the few minutes since their last embrace, he had transformed into work mode, his face a keen mask of duty and resolve.

"Nothing from Finch. I'll catch you at the precinct."

"Right. Stay safe out there."

Though her tone was casual and cheery, she couldn't keep the wistful caution out of her voice altogether. Every time they parted she felt as though she was sending her soldier off to the battle front.

She nodded a farewell then and turned back for another sip of the scalding coffee.

POIPOIPOI

"_Stay."_

The murmur in her ear as she fastened the top button of her overcoat was soft but startling nonetheless.

A drawled voice, low and precise as always. The machine announcing its presence again.

She spoke out loud so that it could hear her over the water's gurgle as she ran the faucet to rinse out her coffee mug:

"You think you're funny, hunh? A real comedian."

She didn't want to believe that the artificial intelligence watched them as closely as that; for her own sanity, she had to assume it gave them a little privacy in their most intimate moments. But this order did seem uncomfortably like a direct imitation of John's earlier plea.

"_Stay."_

"You're sick, you know?" Whispered, but she put some venom into it.

Moving with swift deliberation toward the door, she clomped her boots in defiance.

"If you say it one more time, I smash this damn ear piece so hard even **you'll** feel the pain!"

"_Stay, Joss."_

Before she could lift her hand to carry out the threat, a heavy knock disrupted the apartment's calm.

She pulled back the front door to find John rigid and motionless in the frame, the whites visible all around his pupils as they blazed an indecipherable warning.

Despite the grim set of his mouth and the stiffness in his shoulders, she laughed.

"I thought you were long gone by now."

Then he plunged forward into the apartment, pushing against her chest with his so that she had to stumble backwards in order to avoid falling over.

"What the hell, John…!"

"Joss, I'm sorry."

Behind him, a tiny woman trained a big Glock at his back.

Crystal Floyd, the cruel and mysterious muse of The Brotherhood, the leader of Dominic's hit squad.

The machine purred a string of numbers into Joss's ear as the other woman slammed home the metal door's bolt to lock them in.

"Hey, Carter! I ran into your boo down the corner and he invited me up for a chat."

"Get back, Joss."

John's voice was tight, the words snapped and low.

"Carter, your man's real smart. Mostly."

A sneer twisted Crystal's cupid bow mouth, her eyes flashing above smooth curves of cocoa skin.

"You oughta listen to what he say."

Joss recognized the soft scent of baby powder as it wafted from beneath the younger woman's black leather jacket. This sweetness undercut the animal musk in an insinuating tangle Joss still found as confusing and frightening as the first time she had smelled it.

They had met in a darkened van over two months ago, gang lord Dominic hosting the tense get-together in a fetid abandoned viaduct known as the Bronx Swamp.

So Joss wasn't completely surprised at this sudden reunion, she always figured she would meet up with Crystal Floyd again, police work and The Brotherhood being what they were.

But with the terms of this meeting out of her control, Joss felt cold dread thickening in her veins as Crystal stepped slowly toward the center of the room.

Intimate and daring, this violation proclaimed the invader's boldness. Or announced a dark desperation that was equally dangerous.

Joss eased her hand toward the gun holstered at her waist, but the other woman caught the movement.

"Tricks'll get you a bullet through the back of his pretty head, Carter."

Joining words to action, Crystal raised her gun toward the angled hairline at John's nape.

"Put it on the counter."

Joss placed her weapon on the granite island and stepped back, her hands extended at waist height so their captor could see them.

Crystal was dressed with the dark economy of her profession: black leggings wrinkled slightly at the knees where they met scarred tan leather boots. Under the jacket, a tight black t-shirt stretched across her small breasts and tucked into a narrow belt. Shiny black hair was scraped into a low pony-tail, whose dip-dyed auburn ends draped over her shoulder.

Waving the gun in a short arc, Crystal motioned John toward the kitchen.

He obeyed, keeping his eyes on her weapon as he backed across the Persian rug. When he reached the couch, he arched a question with a dark eyebrow. At her silent nod, he shrugged off his overcoat and dropped it across the sofa arm and then resumed his retreat.

"Crystal, what do you want with us? Why did you come here?"

John's voice was low, but Joss recognized the danger in his tone.

"I want to talk with her." The baby-faced killer raised her chin in Joss's direction.

"How'd you know she'd be here?"

John was bristling with suppressed energy, his staccato questions peppering the air between them.

Crystal chuckled in counterpoint to his fury and drawled out a reply designed to provoke.

"When a sister's pot getting stirred good, she likes to keep it going regular. Now I know Carter here drops by your crib two, three nights a week, nice and regular. Getting stirred _real_ good, like I say."

A raised eyebrow in Joss's direction to punctuate the vaudeville.

"But this week, Baby Girl missed Friday night, Saturday night, _and_ Sunday. So I figured she'd be plenty thirsty, show up here for _sure_ last night. _Bingo!_

"Sum it short: Miss Thang got a thing for your thing!"

As John's ears turned a dusky pink, Crystal let out a coarse laugh that rolled toward the room's broad windows.

"Ain't that right, Carter? Tell it true now!"

When Joss dug her fingernails into the back of the leather club chair, Crystal chuckled again and returned her attention to John.

Stung, he snapped out another question as his back touched the refrigerator door:

"So, what do you want to talk about?"

"Ya know, Riley, you suppose to be all silent and ghost-like. A statue in a suit, or something. So don't get chatty with me all of a sudden. Blows the street rep."

The smile slipped from her face.

"We'll talk about _what_ I want. _When_ I want. _After_ I get you nice and situated."

Without taking her eyes from the target, Crystal raised her voice to throw it in a different direction.

"Carter, I know you got some cuffs in here somewhere."

With her left hand, the gangster drew a circle around the apartment.

"Not those furry pink ones you two like to dirty-play with. The NYPD regulation kind. Find 'em and cuff your man to the frig there. So he don't make trouble while we girls talk."

Under Crystal's baleful gaze, Joss did as instructed.

Clasping one bracelet through the double handles of the refrigerator's doors, she fastened the other around John's right wrist. Her fingers shook as they grazed his warm skin and she stroked an apology over his pulse point.

Leaning close as she worked, Joss could feel the anger rolling off of his body, see the faint film of sweat glistening over his upper lip. Tension forced rapid breaths from him in ragged intervals. She tried to calm him by steadying her gaze and slowing her inhalations until he timed his breathing to hers.

She wanted to speak, say that everything would be alright, that two against one always prevailed.

But when her fumbling efforts with the manacles revealed a treacherous shaking, she decided to keep quiet.

As she stood back from her task, Crystal spoke up again.

"Naw, naw. Gimme the key, Carter. I'm not near as dumb as you and Fancy Face here think I am."

Joss placed the miniature key on the island counter top and slid it a few inches toward their captor.

After she pocketed the key, Crystal seized a cold slice of wheat toast from the plate on the island.

"All you got to eat around here is this dry white people breakfast?"

Disdain flattened her upper lip, but she took two large bites anyway. Around a third mouthful, she mumbled a further comment.

"You people don't think I'm serious, hunh? Think I'm playing around here? That how you see it?"

Abruptly, Crystal pointed the Glock toward the ceiling and squeezed off two rounds.

The loud report drew a gasp from Joss, who looked to John. His icy glower and hunched shoulders frightened her even more than the gun blast itself.

Shards of plaster pelted down on the island countertop. Three sets of eyes followed snowflakes of white paint as they drifted from the brutal little craters in the ceiling.

Into the silence that followed the twin explosions, Crystal threw out more orders, a kittenish smile now stretching her lips.

"And push a stool up over there so your baby can get comfortable, for crissake! Public servant like that. Poor man's on his feet all day long."

As she maneuvered the stool into place, Joss leaned close again. She turned her body so that her movements were blocked from Crystal's view and slipped a duplicate handcuff key into John's jacket pocket.

With her forehead skimming his shoulder, she heard the distinctive crackle of his ear piece and Harold's voice chirping a familiar message:

"_We've got a new number at last, Mr. Reese. One that may jolt even your jaded sensibilities…"_

Joss coughed to cover John's whispered reply.

"Yeah, found her already."

POIPOIPOI

For fifteen minutes Crystal regaled them with stories of her life on the streets, a rollicking account of her exploits as the female chief of The Brotherhood's murder squad. She spoke with gusto about the women she had cut, the men she had maimed, the nineteen months hard time she had booked behind bars before she turned twenty.

After a while, telling these tales seemed an end in itself, as if Crystal's visit were a social call between club ladies. Joss sensed the woman was establishing her bona fides, letting them know that the power she exercised in this room and in the streets was earned on the city's roughest battle fields.

Joss sat in one leather chair, Crystal in the other, both women rarely shifting their eyes from John's coiled figure as he leaned against the stool before the refrigerator. He remained silent throughout the recital, letting Joss offer all the prompts, pushing along the narrative with quick questions or soothing murmurs as needed.

On soft clouds of baby powder, Crystal's stories swirled around the apartment, heating its confines with her restless braggadocio. After a few minutes, Joss shrugged off her overcoat and pushed up the sleeves of her sweater.

Casual, comfortable, just like two girlfriends catching up after a long separation. Joss hoped that by letting the other woman preen and display, the danger could be contained or defused.

Joss wasn't surprised that Crystal was the hero of every encounter, the victor at the end of every chapter. The stories spiraled into evermore fanciful legends; in her telling, Harlem heeled and the Bronx knelt at her slightest command.

Hearing about all the sad equations that defined life in so many quarters of her city made Joss feel helpless and defeated. Drugs, numbers, guns, gambling, money laundering; wherever the law created a gap between human desire and satisfaction, The Brotherhood rushed in to scratch that eternal itch.

But in Crystal's account, the gang served other, more benign, purposes.

"You know that rundown old community center up on Lennox Place? We bought twenty-five new basketballs for them last winter to replace the raggedy ones they had blown out."

Joss could hear pride mellowing the voice as Crystal continued her story.

"And we been supplying paints, pencils, charcoal, paper, and modeling clay to three afterschool programs in the South Bronx and two more in Harlem. Kept them open when the city was about to let them go under."

The killer's pretty face glowed with satisfaction as the rhythmic sentences rolled on.

"The Brotherhood is there for the people. Bullies beat on a kid 'cause he got pansy ways, Brotherhood is there to protect. Runaway girl wearing a black eye from her pimp, Brotherhood is there to take her to a shelter."

Her impassioned tones rang like a politician's speech or a union organizer's promise.

"Grandma afraid to cash her check, Brotherhood is there to help her too. We work streets Child Services don't dare visit and blocks you cops ain't cruised in years. Anywhere you look, Brotherhood is there."

Joss wanted to disrupt the flow, redirect it without actually tossing out a blunt challenge.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it, Crystal. You're some kind of urban legend. Annie Oakley with a little Shaka Zulu and Albert Schweitzer mixed in there for flava."

"Who's that?" Crystal's eyes narrowed as if she suspected a nasty joke was hidden somewhere in the barrage of names.

"You're the princess _**and**_ the prince in this fairy tale. I get that. But what I want to know is how'd you get to be so big in The Brotherhood? What made you Dominic's right hand?"

Crystal settled back in the enfolding chair, mollified.

"Not a long story, really. My folks moved up here from Tampa the year my big sister was born. My dad changed his last name to Floyd to get better jobs with these white people. Figueroa was just too hard for them to pronounce, he said. I came up in the Bronx just after Dominic got started there. I worked corners for a crew he ran."

Crystal's eyes took on a warmer hue as the morning sun caught them, cognac flickering in their smoky brown depths. Joss guessed she was enjoying this chance to share her life story, to reflect a little on where she had been and how far she had come.

As the sole female in a cadre bound together by machismo, Crystal didn't get much chance to speak out loud, Joss figured. Talking woman to woman like this was probably a precious rarity in her life.

"My boss was Dominic's best lieutenant. Little fella, always sharp dressed. Name Roger, but everybody called him 'Carnage' because of this one time he offed eight gangbangers in one raid. Tossed a collection house, saved Dominic's life too. After that they all called him 'Carnage' out of respect, 'cause didn't nobody want to go up against him ever again."

Crystal smiled at the bloody memory and ran a hand over her flame-licked pony tail. She was on a roll, the gangland glamour of her life's arc glittering as she spoke.

"Carnage taught me everything I know about the business. About reading people, figuring out where their heart's at, studying their eyes, learning their moves, getting so far inside their heads you know all their drama, all their dreams."

She nodded her own head as she recited the lessons of Carnage.

"Knowing when they lying to save they own sorry ass or bullshitting to hide a mistake somebody else made. Or getting ready to sell you out or screw you over. Fucking them before they fuck you. Carnage, he knew when to pull a smile and when to pull the trigger."

Joss nodded too and she let a small smile tug at her lips.

So this demi-god Carnage was the source of Crystal's remarkable powers of intuition and the eerie clairvoyance Joss had witnessed in their last meeting in the Swamp.

She noticed that as Crystal wove her tales like some Bronx-born Scheherazade, John leaned forward slightly on the stool, these insights into the internal dynamics of The Brotherhood holding his full attention.

Finally, he threw a question to prime the flow of information.

"And you were a good student, hunh? Got all A's in Carnage's classroom?"

"Yeah, I did."

Pride ripe and unfettered poured from her now.

"Carnage said I was the best he'd _ever_ seen – pimps, hawkers, cutters, runners, lamp posters, dustmen, baggers, sweat skimmers -– none of 'em better than me."

"And you were his prize disciple."

John again, voice slow and so warm it surprised Joss even as it cajoled their captor.

"Yeah, I was. _**Am**_. Can't _**nobody**_ beat Baby Carnage at the game.

"_**Baby **__Carnage?" _

John's question sent a shiver down Joss's back as Crystal stood from her chair. Breast high and proud, neck arched long, she stalked to the window, raising her voice as she moved.

"That's what they called me after Carnage passed. 'Cause when it happened, _**I**_ was the one Dominic picked to step up, to take his place, work by his side in a position of trust."

John's interruption was still soft, but frosted now with sarcasm:

"And so _'__**Baby Carnage**__,'_ now Dominic's sent you here. To do what? Kill us? Rough us up? Deliver another message?"

His taut voice cut through the room, the whisper emphasizing the sardonic tones of the next thrust. Joss knew he was trying to pull Crystal's attention back toward him, to draw her fire with these prods.

"I got his first little love note - the one from the Bronx Swamp."

Crystal whipped her head in his direction but said nothing.

John shifted his weight on the stool and rattled the cuff with impatience.

"So what's your boss got for me now, Baby Carnage?"

Her eyes, which had been soft and caramel colored with fond remembrance despite the violence of her stories, resumed their cooler bronze cast.

"Dominic didn't send me."

She paused and Joss noticed a new quaver in the raspy voice.

"I came here on my own account."


	2. Chapter 2

A twinge of compassion threaded through Joss then, the niggling sense that this woman before her was in trouble somehow. Was Crystal, for all her combative bluster and deadly gunplay, under siege?

Behind the murderous affect and swagger, perhaps this woman was more embattled than lethal.

On the surface, they seemed such different women, one on the street, the other on the sidewalk, a broad deep gutter separating their lives.

But maybe the race they ran was not parallel after all, but intertwined. By some strange curve or odd fork, their life paths had crossed in a double helix of shared danger.

With a jolt, Joss felt she recognized this woman, her small stature, her brown skin, her undervalued skills and belittled insights. She felt she understood something true about Crystal's twisted journey to this room, this confrontation.

So a sense of unexpected sisterhood warmed her next question.

"Go on then, Crystal. You want something from us? From me?"

The soft prodding seemed to open up a new vein of melancholy in the younger woman.

She stared through the windows at the bright parade of skyscrapers stretching against the milk white clouds.

"You ever wish you could get there ahead of the crime, Carter? Get there in time to stop the bad thing before it went down? Instead of mopping up the blood and death after all us gangbangers get away?"

"Yeah, I feel like that a lot."

Joss's wistful words came out more like a sob than she had intended.

"Most days on the job, I feel like that. If I stop to think about it too much."

She looked a glance of apology at John and when his eyes gleamed wet with empathy, Joss released a juddering sigh.

At the sound, the younger woman turned, her slender figure silhouetted against the window's glare.

"And can you help me, Crystal? Help me get there in time?"

Then the offer burst out in a fiery rush of words.

"You know I got inside information. Right from the top. I can give it to you, Carter. Help you break a case. Give you a heads up on a heist. Or let you know when the next shipment's due. Or who's about to get erased. Shit like that."

Joss nodded encouragement, her excitement genuine.

"That could work. It could help. A lot."

Even as the bigger picture unfurled in their shared vision, thoughts of an immediate risk curled around the edges of the canvas.

"But you'd be in danger, Crystal, wouldn't you?"

The younger woman shrugged and walked back toward the chairs, bending to lay her gun on the rough slats of the coffee table.

"I'm in danger every day regardless. We all gonna end up dead, you know. Just some of us gonna get there sooner than others, that's all."

A smaller shrug this time, the head tilt stiffened with chagrin.

"I turn twenty-two next month. Already an old lady in this trade."

Joss let her brows slide upwards at this declaration of defeat, but remained silent.

"Dominic making it to twenty-nine is some kinda miracle, never seen it happen before. Never will again, I figure. So I don't fool myself about living long. That's not for me, I know that much."

She screwed up a corner of her mouth in a grimace.

"My number's already been called."

"You think you're in danger from Dominic?"

"Well, he blew up that reform school a few months back, didn't he? Trying to get at Old Man Elias. Killed six of our best men and fucked up ten more so bad they still ain't back on the streets."

Crystal shuddered at the memory, lids closing for a long pause as she caught her breath. Joss thought the lowered lashes made her look like a sleeping baby.

A slight rustle caused Joss to look toward the kitchen. She saw John's hand in his jacket pocket, his finger caressing the hidden key. He caught her glance, narrowing his lips to signal their understanding.

Crystal, unaware, continued her story.

"Dominic didn't bat an eye doing it. Just told me those busted up men was the cost of doing business in the city. Soldiers lost in the war, he said."

"Maybe he's just being realistic about the necessary sacrifice."

Joss didn't believe this, but she offered it as a thin comfort all the same.

"You know Link, one of Dominic's top lieutenants?"

"Yeah, John told me about him a while back."

She thought Crystal blinked, perhaps to catch a stray tear before continuing.

"Well, I seen the way Link looked when he stumbled out of that place that day. It wasn't just how his face was cut up and his arm was shattered. I saw how the explosion left his mind all trampled and flighty, like he'd seen his own ghost and was tripping over himself to get away."

She loosed a faint breath that puffed out her lips.

"But that ghost, it was stitched to him like a shadow. Link ain't been right since."

Joss shook her head, refusing to accept the twist.

"But Dominic trusts you. He wouldn't get rid of you. I've seen how you work together. How much he relies on your insights and your guidance. You're safe, Crystal."

The little killer sighed, a vertical line creasing her flawless brow. Then another sigh, as if the explanation itself was a heavy burden she strained to carry any further up the hill.

"Not a chance. I told you I got to be his right hand when Carnage died. But I didn't tell you _**how**_ that happened."

The woman, looking more like the lost girl she really was, shrank into the embracing chair again. She worried at invisible tags of flesh on her knuckles as she pulled together the last of her story.

"Dominic ordered the hit. He heard some gossip that Carnage was planning to pull off a side drug deal with some Russian skags, skim off a little profit on the side. Dominic couldn't let that kind of thing stand. Betrayal like that will spread through your whole organization, he said. Like an infection rips through a body, 'til the fever brings you to a raving end. Dominic said Carnage had to go."

Crystal hesitated only a fraction of a moment, until the next affirmation carried her forward.

"And he was right, ya know. I knew for a fact what Carnage had planned. I had the inside line. And I dropped it to Dominic. _I _was the one snitched on Carnage."

Another pause, but the end was a boulder rolling downhill now, dragging her on to the last.

"And Dominic told me _I_ was the one had to pull the trigger."

"And you - you did it?"

Stuttering made the question kink in Joss's throat.

"I did. Put two bullets in the back of Roger's head while he slept there in the bed beside me."

Joss couldn't help the hissing sound she made at this raw confession. She bit her lip to recapture silence.

But after a tense minute, John's low voice cut through the sparkling sunlight again:

"Crystal, you know we can't protect you. Today, sure. Maybe tomorrow too. But not forever. Not inside The Brotherhood."

"I know that. You can't protect me. That's why I want this deal. Why I want to be an informant for Carter now."

She tilted her head toward Joss even as her gaze clung to John's face.

He caught the import of her words before Joss did.

"You want protection for someone else. Not yourself. That it?"

Crystal's eyes shone bright as she stared at John.

"Yeah, someone else."

Her connection, formerly with Joss alone, had mysteriously expanded during this strained hour to encompass him as well.

Holding her breath, Joss watched as John slipped his right hand from the unlocked manacle and took three strides toward their position. She could see where the cuff had left reddened grooves on his wrist.

He advanced without menace or aggression, his steps making no sound after he reached the Persian rug.

"_Yomaira."_

Whispering into her ear piece, the machine repeated the strange word, _"Yomaira." _Gentle syllables, languid and musical, the R rolled with a flourish.

Joss didn't know if this was a warning, a name, or simply the super computer's vague musings in a foreign language. _"Yomaira."_

When John was in front of Crystal's chair, he lowered his body until his head was level with hers, so that despite his bulk he didn't loom. Joss thought he looked like an imploring suitor, not a combatant.

Crouching before her, his next words carried a soft declaration rather than a probe.

"A baby. _**Your**_ baby."

Frozen in his penetrating blue gaze, the young woman answered.

"Yeah, for JoJo."

When she didn't go on immediately, John prompted her again.

"JoJo is your baby?"

"Yomaira Sonia. I called her that after my grandma. She's three years old now, chatters like a little monkey."

Smiles fluttered across Crystal's face, fond ones and proud ones chasing each other as her thoughts raced ahead of her words.

"Reads the whole alphabet, sings and counts in Spanish and in English too."

John hummed a little sound of affirmation, no smile yet but a tiny buzz escaping his lips to urge Crystal onward.

"If I can, I'll get her out of this life. Out of this war zone. JoJo deserves a better shot than this."

Joss hated to sound doubtful in this crisis of spirit, but she said it anyway.

"Will Dominic let her go?"

Crystal's reply was resolute, even vehement.

"He don't have no fuckin' say in it! He can give _**me **_orders, I'm his soldier. His mission is my mission. But JoJo don't have a mission yet."

Then fiercely:

"And I don't want my baby scouting some damn street corner at eight. A lamp-poster in his army before she turns ten."

When John touched his fingers to the back of her hand, she hiccupped, just a little, to swallow the sob that was surging in her throat.

"We can get JoJo out of the city for you, Crystal. That's what you want, isn't it?"

He traced a figure eight to soothe the tendons of her gun hand, the competent brown knuckles there flexing like a cat under his caress.

She nodded, a weary gesture that barely lifted her trembling chin from her chest.

Joss seconded John's pledge.

"We can do it, if that's what you want."

John added, "We'll come up with something, Crystal."

Not quite a smile, but a tilt to his cheekbones signaled the accord had been reached.

As he spoke, Joss eased her hand over the vicious Glock and lifted it from the packing crate. Crystal's thoughts were elsewhere.

"You get JoJo to my grandma's in Tampa and they'll find a way to get her to the island. You do that and I'll do anything you want. Any fuckin' thing you want, if you get her away from here safe."

"Why don't you take her yourself, make a new life somewhere else?"

Joss felt she had to ask, to clear away all the scattered possibilities so that the one stark choice was inevitable.

"I told you, Carter. I'm his soldier in this war. I know it. Dominic knows it. You know it too."

She swept a resigned glance across their faces, her prisoners turned allies in a dangerous skirmish she fully expected to lose.

"If I run, Dominic hunts me down. If I take JoJo, he finds me even easier."

A tremor pulsed through her frame, the forlorn quaver shaking Joss as well.

Then like a cloud passing from a battle field, Joss saw the grimness which had darkened Crystal's expression clear away.

A new determination, coupled with a familiar smirk surfaced now.

"But we'll come up with something, just like Fancy Face here said."

Her aspect turned pretty again in that instant. Was it real happiness? Not a chance, but Joss was sure a flush tinted the gangster's cheeks.

"And after that, Carter, I'm yours for life."

With an impish nod, Crystal slapped both hands on the arms of her chair and leaned forward, her nose almost touching John's.

Then she shouted, so that his eyes started in surprise.

"Hey, Riley! Where you keep your john around here? A girl's got needs!"

Another coarse chuckle as she scampered across the living room in the direction he pointed.

When he heard the bathroom door slam shut, John blurted an order to Joss.

"Unbolt the front door. Cavalry's on the way."

She rushed to do as he asked, then hid the Glock under her seat cushion and settled back into her chair before Crystal returned. John remained in place, now seated on the packing crate a few feet from their captor, a hand balanced on the arm of her chair, his legs wide, chest and shoulders squared over her.

Joss thought he seemed to be enfolding Crystal without actually touching her, his gesture an implicit contract, a promise for the future.

She knew his protective embrace so well, had felt cherished in its circle a thousand times. John's enfolding solace was so essential to her now, the very substance and foundation of her life, that she was glad she could witness this extension of it here.

She hoped that her silent consent would give courage to Crystal and love to John. She would keep a little portion of both for herself too; they would need all of it and more in the coming struggle.

They held these positions - Joss in her chair, John poised before Crystal - in a graceful tableau of trust, for several more minutes.

Buoyed by new optimism, Crystal resumed her hoodlum tales of life on the Bronx battlefield, seeming to relish this chance to glory once more in her blood soaked achievements.

Joss thought these stories now served as a kind of weird advertisement, proclaiming Crystal's unique value to her new allies. In light of their agreement, these legends seemed the sign and unbreakable seal of her transferred loyalties.

POIPOIPOI

Fusco's shattering entry scared Joss, even though she was expecting it.

The metal door flew back with such a bang that at first she thought it must be gunfire.

Then Fusco bulled his way forward, service revolver drawn, wild bellows stunning the apartment's sunlit quiet. He was alone, but with his overcoat rising around his knees, and a red mask of rage stretching his face, her partner seemed like a charging battalion.

"Hands where I can see 'em! All a you!"

John sprang upright and pulled Crystal from her chair. He wrapped his arms around her and then turned his back to Fusco, an instinctive shield to counter the cop's blind assault.

As Fusco lumbered toward them, Joss shouted over the rattling of the floor boards.

"We're O.K., Lionel! Don't shoot!"

She raised her hands in the air, as if she were the thug and not the victim.

"We're alright. It's O.K. now!"

Though he lowered his weapon right away, it took Fusco several minutes to wind down and assess the altered situation.

"Glasses told me you were in some kinda tough spot or something, so I got here on the double."

The frown he tossed at John was Fusco's harshest form of rebuke.

Joss knew he had been frightened and used her most soothing tones to calm his fears.

"We were, Lionel. And now we're not. Trouble over and everything's alright."

"Yeah, well, if you say so." Skeptical with a dollop of brooding on top.

Then Fusco peered at Crystal's pouting face, her body slack and small as she trembled in John's enveloping arms.

"Hey, I recognize this one. The littlest assassin in the Big Apple. Emerald, wasn't it? Or Diamond? Or some other kinda shiny rock."

"Yeah, and fuck you too!"

She let her eyes bug out in petulant defiance at the insult, but made no move to leave John's embrace.

"This is Crystal Floyd, Fusco."

John spoke at last, his voice rumbling through the room with quiet authority.

"She's in my custody."

"Yeah, sure she is."

Fusco's sardonic tone indicated he thought John might be pulling a fast one.

"But in the meantime, just let me run her in to the shop. I bet we got an outstanding warrant or fifty on her murdering little ass."

"I _said_: she's in my custody, Lionel. We've got it covered."

John was crisp and the squaring of his shoulders said his word was final.

But for the first time that morning, Joss noticed the wash of violet that darkened the inner corners of his eye sockets, the tiny threads of red zagging through the whites. He looked depleted, exhausted, and shaken.

Several more minutes of back and forth finally convinced Fusco that his partners were indeed serious about letting The Brotherhood's top killer go free.

"Just so long as this don't come back to bite me in the ass, I guess I hafta take your word for it."

"It won't, I promise." Joss was the conciliator here, the two men still at loggerheads.

To end the stand-off, she rearranged the players, like a hostess at a dinner flicking the lights to shift the party's dynamic.

"It's been a pretty long morning, fellas. I still need to get into the precinct before Captain chews my ass off one more time. And so do you, Riley."

Her tone was brusque, giving orders where she had been on the receiving end only a few hours before.

"Lionel, get a glass of water or juice or something from the frig for Floyd here. I need to talk with John for a minute."

Fusco deepened his scowl, promising that this was not a done deal, not by a long shot.

When they got to his bedroom, Joss shut the door and wheeled on John.

"You O.K.?"

"Yes."

He let the fringe of black lashes linger over his cheekbones for a fraction too long.

"You don't look O.K."

"I'm O.K."

He exhaled, then sat down on the rumpled bed clothes, leaning back so that his stiff arms propped his torso. She sat beside him, smoothing the quilt between them.

He wasn't going to say it, so she would:

"I was frightened out there. I didn't know if she was crazy enough to make us chose which one she shot first."

"Yes. She _was_ that crazy."

"But it worked out O.K., John. We're O.K. now."

His eyes, when he finally raised them to meet hers, were shiny with tears, the pupils so translucent they seemed foiled over with silver.

"I calculated all the angles, the distances, Joss. But I just couldn't figure out how to get to her before she shot you. It was… I – I don't know…"

He ran his right hand over his brow, pushing an index finger into the corner of his eye as if to poke out the horrific image.

She drew the hand away from his face and clasped it in both of hers, stroking until warmth flooded into the fingers again.

"I know, baby. I know."

A kiss on the side of his head just above the right ear.

"But you know what else I know? Together we'll figure out a way to help her. Through her we can strike at The Brotherhood, strangle it for good. And save an innocent child at the same time."

John seemed to rally at this idea.

"Yes, I'll come up with something."

"No. _We_ will come up with something. Together, that's how it works with us."

He raised both hands until they cradled her jaw, angling her mouth for a gentle kiss.

"It's not safe for you here anymore. They know where I live and sooner or later they'll come back and get you."

He ran trembling fingers over the fine baby hairs along her temple.

"I can't let that happen. Ever. I won't lose you. So you can't stay here anymore. We'll find a way. But you can't stay here."

Warm lips pressed to her forehead, she thought she felt them curve into a smile, but she wasn't sure. Then a third kiss, deeply into her mouth. But when she raised her hands to his shoulders, he fled back to the living room.

Joss dissolved into tears.

The tense emotions of the day released at last, mixing with the harsh finality of his words, all his fears braiding with hers into a rope of despair tightening around them.

They had to find a way.

POIPOIPOI

A few minutes later Fusco departed, the trapped air in the apartment seeming to decompress as he went.

Then John left with Crystal, his fist gripping her wiry biceps, muscles jumping along his clenched jaw as he hustled her out. They might have reached a détente, but Joss knew his vigil would never relax.

As John pushed her through the door, the tiny killer nodded once at Joss. The smile gracing her lips at that final moment seemed more sincere than any flashed during the whole weird morning they had shared.

They would meet again, the sweet smile promised, and those circumstances would be different, certainly violent perhaps even fatal.

But Joss hoped that the bond forged in these anxious hours would become part of Crystal's private arsenal of memories; a treaty to be honored despite all the complications and dangers of the days ahead.

Crystal would never tell this peculiar story out loud, Joss was certain of that. But surely she would treasure it all the same.

And maybe, just maybe, it would turn out that Crystal – mad, devoted, deadly - was the way out for them all.

When John's apartment was quiet at last, Joss circled once around it, gathering her coat, badge, and gun.

"_Stay."_ The insistent cackle of the machine started up again in her ear. _"Stay, Joss."_

She launched her retort into the hushed sunlight that still flooded the space:

"The hell you say!"

"_Stay, baby."_

The ear piece made a satisfying crunch as she smashed it under her boot.


End file.
